


Learning Curve

by Wrenlet



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-12-27
Updated: 2003-12-27
Packaged: 2017-10-03 13:40:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wrenlet/pseuds/Wrenlet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ben gets something he needs from an unexpected source.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Learning Curve

**Author's Note:**

> Post-season three and AU.

Ben bites the inside of his cheek, and thinks about mistletoe.

It had been crazy for him to go to the party at all, really, what with Michael off condo-shopping in sunny Florida and their relationship hanging by a thread about as wide as a telephone cable. Emmett's ideas of mistletoe etiquette were even crazier, and he hadn't paid them or the sprig of greenery over the kitchen door a bit of attention until he heard the laughter and looked around to see Justin grinning sheepishly up at him. Brian had smirked, and helpfully called out the rules, "Three minutes, full body contact, groping optional. But I want to see some tongue."

Justin had turned long enough to stick his out at Brian, then he had taken Ben's cup of 'nog, set it safely aside and sidled into Ben's space. "Wanna give 'em a show?"

Three months later he and Michael frayed apart completely, and a month after that he found himself watching Justin at the pool table with Brian and Emmett, thinking about the feel of his fingers in Ben's hair, and the press of lips that tasted of smoke and something else, maybe Brian's aftershave, and the sweep of a tongue that had been so much more insistent than he had expected.

Ben is lucky, he knows that. Pittsburgh's queer community is small, and it would be even smaller for him if this little family hadn't folded around him and taken him into the space left by the Grassi/Novotny household. He knows he doesn't fill it, either, can't ever, but it's nice all the same.

So now Ben is welcome at their table at Woody's, and the corner of the bar at Babylon, and sometimes up to the loft or over at Lindsay and Mel's, but he hadn't known until he asked that he was welcome to have Justin in his bed.

He's not exactly sure why he did ask, which is unusual for him, except that it had something to do with mistletoe and the fact that he had not been in control of the kiss. Not for a second. And he hasn't been in control of _this_ since Justin fixed him with a searching look, lifted his chin in a little nod and called out to the others that they were leaving. Brian hadn't even looked over at them, just smirked towards the pool table and lined up another shot.

Justin had laughed it off when Ben wondered at that, and told Ben that he and Brian did what they pleased. They'd learned that much. Even so, Ben might have worried about it more if Justin had left him a spare moment, but he hadn't, and that's a good thing.

Sometimes Ben just needs to not be in control.

He lets them into the apartment and Justin already knows where everything is, but even if he didn't... Ben thinks, even if Justin had never been here before he might still walk like this, tug and push like this, inhabit Ben's space as if he belongs here. Invade Ben's mouth like it's his right and strip him with a confidence that Ben has to admit -- because he admits these things, at least, he is that honest -- he has craved.

Justin doesn't say the things his rare, recent tricks have said, that Michael was a fool to "leave all this behind." Instead he speaks his appreciation, his desire with the sweep of his fingers across Ben's abdomen and down his hips, the curve of his lips against the hollow of Ben's throat, and when he plants his palms in the middle of Ben's chest and pushes him down onto the bed Michael is, for once, not in the room at all.

Justin lays on top of him, naked and warm and hard and Ben reaches, but Justin shifts to avoid his grasp with a soft, "Mmm, no." He runs those hands down Ben's arms to grasp his wrists, pulls them up over his head and folds Ben's fingers around the metal of his headboard with a sly look. "Keep them there." It isn't a request, and Ben swallows around his own question -- whether Justin knows this because Brian told him or because he _asked_ \-- and instead just nods and watches Justin slide down the length of his body.

"If I were nobody you knew," Ben remembers saying, leaning close to be heard over the background noise at Woody's, "just a stranger, some guy you saw in a bar... would you come home with me?"

But now Justin cups the head of Ben's cock in one hand and licks at the base of it, laying wet, open-mouth kisses along the shaft. Ben sucks air through his teeth and clenches his hands around steel piping, because a trick wouldn't do this, a stranger wouldn't care how fucking good it feels to have soft, warm lips dragging across the skin of his dick.

It's fantastic. Justin's fantastic, and he's Justin, and this isn't like Ben thought it would be at all. His hands are sure and familiar, and he knows Ben doesn't bottom often and remembers he strained a hamstring week before last, and the push of his cock inside of Ben has all the thrill of the new and none of the awkwardness of the strange and God, Ben guessed he would be good but this is... fucking incredible. Justin grins down at him, that little smug grin he gets sometimes when Brian follows him off the floor at Babylon; Ben might laugh at the symmetry of experience there if he weren't so desperate for Justin to kiss him again.

And God, Justin teases. Dips down to suck Ben's tongue into his mouth only to pull away again, out of reach, rolls his hips with little staccato jabs at his prostate and then backs off into steady rhythm again... it's enough to drive him out of his head. Ben is panting hard and covered in sweat, fists sliding along the lacquered railings like he's jacking twin cocks and he's about to fucking beg when Justin starts to murmur to him, "C'mon, Ben, lose control. Just let go." He opens his eyes to find Justin peering down at him through his own sweaty bangs, no trace of smug left at all, he's just... earnest, and there, and giving this to him.

Something inside Ben shatters and releases, and he knows he's not Justin's pity-fuck and he's not everyone else's poor substitute, he just _is_, finally. Finally. He's himself, and Justin is chanting a soft litany of, "Yes, fuck, yes," and jerking inside his ass, and as he feels Justin's blunt fingernails dig into the top of his thigh Ben thinks he might be okay now.


End file.
